The present invention relates to a remote maintenance system for aiding in determinations of maintenance and its works at a remote location when periodic plant inspection or plant maintenance is performed.
Mobile equipment is capable of performing information communications through a radio communication or a local area network. On the other hand, tags used in plant maintenance are on their way to be applied in some systems, for example, system for checking on the state of shaft bearing, or system for management of entrance/exit to rooms of controlled areas an atomic power plant.
In the actual plant inspection or the actual plant maintenance, when their works are done, there are various works patterns. For example, in one case, a manufacturer or a maintenance company dispatches an inspection/maintenance instructor to the site of inspection or maintenance. And, the actual works are carried out in dependence on a judgment by him. In another case, a person in charge of facility maintenance may directly carry out works for replacements or repairs of equipment in the facility.
However, in these days of rationalization of man power due to the present business trend or political disturbances in local areas, it is being difficult to dispatch an inspection/maintenance instructor to the site, and to employ skilled workers. Instead, needs for indirectly performing work instructions at a remote location being far away from the site is increasing.
On the other hand, while communications are being improved worldwide, in regions of aforementioned political disturbances in local areas and/or regions with very few communication users, only small-capacity communication such as the satellite communication can be performed in many cases as before.
The aforementioned problem gives a big obstacle in the work process for an inspection or maintenance work instruction. To put it concretely, the inspection or maintenance work instruction has a problem that the procedure of the instructed work becomes not clear, or a judgment cannot be done immediately in the event of an unexpected situation.
In addition, due to an insufficient communication capacity and/or a difference in language between both the communication parties, in some cases, it takes long time to communicate an intention of one communication party to the other to make the other understand the intention.
As an improvement, a remote maintenance support system has been made available. The remote maintenance support system provides a technology, by which the maintenance worker in the field can obtain proper information on maintenance from a maintenance information server or from a support person working at a technical support center, and recovery work can be done. (For more information, refer to Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-91913).
Actually however it is difficult to correctly advice the maintenance location to be needed on a monitor screen in performance of the maintenance instruction.